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Mortgage start-up Blend has announced it is expanding into insurance, with the launch of Blend Insurance Agency. The firm is known for providing a digital lending platform that helps homebuyers secure mortgages online by reducing paperwork and providing insights.
The firm believes the new service will help make home purchases more digital and less stressful. “Insurance, like mortgage, is a document- and paper-heavy space,” it said in a statement.
Blend’s insurance arm will get an initial boost from a partnership with major insurer MetLife. It will also seek to leverage partnerships with large insurers to scale its business by pairing the offerings, Bloomberg reported. The platform will also partner with five other firms at the start, with the potential for more.
“Blend is the type of partner that we are looking for because our visions are very aligned,” said Kevin Chean, vice president of group auto and home at MetLife, as quoted in the report. “They are used to doing more and more of their shopping online.”
Blend’s new division will be led by Greg Isaacs, with a team of some 20 employees. “For the consumer, insurance is a major piece of getting your mortgage and purchasing your home,” said Greg Isaacs, as quoted by Bloomberg. “The home purchase and mortgage process is complicated and stressful, and insurance is often an overlooked piece of that.”
Blend was founded in 2012 by a group of former Palantir engineers, and has since grown to about 300 full-time employees across the country. It is based in San Francisco, and has another office in the same city, and New York.
